This year has been quite chaotic so far, and there's a risk that partisanship could lead to more chaos in November.
Last week I wrote about the ongoing protests in America arguing that the reason why George Floyd’s death was more resonant with the American people than those of the other ~1 000 people who are killed by police each year in America is due to the context of the pandemic. The pandemic affects different groups in different ways and as it tends to be in America, African-Americans are more vulnerable to negative shocks than white Americans. The effects the pandemic has had is also uneven across classes which could have important political ramifications, especially given America’s high partisanship and insular media ecosystems.
2020 has been an intense year so far in America with the pandemic, deteriorating relations with China over Hong Kong, and now widespread social unrest. This is quite the backdrop for an election year and it will be very interesting to see what the stories about the last four years in general and this year in particular will be from each of the major Presidential campaigns. It seems to me like America is going to continue to be very divided going forward, as factors like party affiliation, class, race, media bubble, and where in America one lives can lead to dramatically different readings of the current moment. To some democrats, this year has been a case study in bad policy, reinforcing the need for better public health infrastructure and police reform. To those who are sympathetic to the President, this year can be seen as a string of bad faith attempts by the administration’s political rivals to create problems after the failed impeachment.
It’s too early to say if the protests will be an important factor in the outcome of the 2020 election, but the high levels of partisanship most certainly will and the President’s inflammatory rhetoric and eagerness to use force against the protesters will only exacerbate the political divide. I’m not self-absorbed enough to believe that I can predict who will win in November but I think the risk of violence breaking out over this year’s elections have risen dramatically as an indirect result of pandemic.
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Written by Karl Johansson
Cover Photo by Kelly Lacy from Pexels
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